Twice a week we publish problems that will feature in a forthcoming Dear Jeremy advice column in the Saturday Guardian so that readers can offer their own advice and suggestions. We then print the best of your comments alongside Jeremy’s own insights. Here is the latest dilemma – what are your thoughts?
I work in central London but live in Bedfordshire. My commute is about an hour each way. As my husband and I have two children of young school age, I do the school run in the morning while my husband looks after the afternoon pickup. I negotiated a deal with work whereby I don’t start until 10:15am each day and work later.
However, over the past year or so the mainline train service I use has become so unreliable that I’m often late, despite leaving in plenty of time – if the trains ran to timetable I would be at work easily on time.
My boss, who lives just 20 minutes from the office, is seemingly unaware of the difficulty of the school run, as well as just how bad the train service is (I don’t think he can believe they are quite so rubbish as they are!). He has suggested I catch an earlier train to arrive at work on time, but this would mean I can’t take the children to school, which I have explained to him. He remains unmoved.
My company claims to have a family-friendly policy, and was good enough to agree to the situation as it is, but I now find myself under pressure from a child-free male to dump the children on someone else in order to catch a train 30 minutes earlier than I should have to. How can I negotiate some sort of leniency when it’s the train company’s failure that is making me late?
Do you need advice on a work issue? For Jeremy’s and readers’ help, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or to reply personally.
